Jennifer Mary G

Hi Monica, thank you for stopping by the blog. I’m so excited to chat with you! Let’s dive in…

I grew up in Harrisburg, Pa which is in the south central part of the state. There are farms surrounding the small city in both directions. I definitely thought about how, even as a child, farms felt like giant backyards to run around in. 

I love how vast, expansive, and visually repetitive it feels to look at the crops of a farm. It feels like such a restful place, but really there is SO much that goes into maintaining those farms.  Therefore I took a lot of time researching farms, the equipment, the different levels of farming etc.

I love drawing plants but hadn’t had much experience illustrating crops. So I had to look at tons of imagery to properly depict how that crop is grown in different stages, what the crops actually look like grown in commercial agriculture compared to small farms, and what the workers look like and use when harvesting them. 

For resources I looked at many websites, and also used Youtube videos showing farming practices. There’s a whole world of educational vlogs from farmers themselves discussing growing practices and harvesting tips. There really was an abundance of information to pull from.

2) I know that authors and illustrators often don’t have the opportunity to meet in person when working collaboratively. Did you have the chance to connect with the author Maria Gianferrari for this book? How did you use the text to inform your illustrations?

I knew of Maria’s work from her book titled “Be a Tree!” which I thought was so beautifully written. So I was excited to get to work with her when my agent showed me the manuscript.. The process was very traditional with the art director, Hana, as the middleman, so Maria and I never connected throughout the book other than following each other on instagram. All feedback and ideas surrounding the production of the book were communicated through the art director. With this manuscript and all manuscripts I work from, I read them out-loud to really get a sense of what emotional, visual, and storytelling elements seem most important to pull from the text. 

Because Maria’s words are so poetic, I felt really drawn to show the warmth food brings us through eating with our families, which would also give a sense of direct perspectives that a child can relate to. So showing a child eating their favorite bread or cereal, or the redness of a tomato on a green tablecloth, while also sharing the non-fictional element of how these food items get to our table. This includes the machinery, the people, and the unique ways the food is grown and harvested.. It was fun to use her words to show the inside and outside of the food industry. I loved the idea of showing the journey from farm to table.  

3) What do you hope children take away from reading Thank a Farmer? 

I really hope that children see within the pages of this book a way to visualize the many people that are involved in getting their food from the earth to their plates. I hope children feel motivated to visit farms, meet farmers, and even grow their own food in a school or home garden to really get the humble perspective of the preciousness of the food and all of the unknown and unseen hands that are part of the beautiful journey of our food from seed to harvest. 

4) Do you strive to create a little art every day? What helps to give you creative inspiration? What does your work space look like?

Absolutely! Creating art is so woven into who I am. I illustrate everyday for other projects I’m working on and make sure to also work on personal projects. If I’m not creating visual art, then I’m probably writing, coming up with ideas, or even creating clay sculptures with my two boys. I love bringing my imagination into the physical in whatever form.

My inspiration is from the things that happen to us that we look at as normal situations but are such valuable stories to share with others visually or with words. I love illustrating nature, spiritual concepts, and relationships between people. I’m inspired by my childhood memories, and things my children say and do.

My work space is in a tiny corner of my children’s homeschool room. Which is all I need since I work digitally using Procreate, an app for your ipad. My tiny desk is usually filled with books I’m reading, my bamboo plant, a salt crystal light, and sketchbooks/notebooks for those ideas I need to jot down. 

5) This may be a difficult question to answer, but what is your favorite art medium to work with? 

I absolutely love using watercolor, crayons and markers when working with traditional supplies. But for my everyday creative process I prefer to work completely digitally to keep up with the speed of my ideas. It also helps when coming up with compositions, moving things around, playing with color palettes and so many other things that you can easily manipulate digitally. With the amount of brushes that mimic traditional tools, visually it is comparable to using the real thing, just so much faster to correct if you make a mistake. So I’d have to say creating digital, specifically using Procreate, is my favorite medium. 

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